December 31, 2005, New York Post -- For 18 years,
the Media Research Center has been
compiling its list of "notable quotables."
The quotes, from prominent members of the mainstream news media, provide a clear
window into the leftist mindset that pervades most of America's large news
organizations. At year's end, the center (aided by a panel of judges) chooses
the "best" examples. As usual, this year's crop tellingly reveals the media's
perennial contempt for all things conservative. Actually, the winners more or
less explain themselves. (The full set of winners and finalists can be found at
the center's Web site, mrc.org.) Happy New Year!

"The dilatory performance of George Bush during the past week [after
Hurricane Katrina] has been outrageous. . . . The churchgoing cultural populism
of George Bush has given the United States an administration that worries about
the House of Saud and the welfare of oil companies while the poor drown in their
attics and their sons and daughters die in foreign deserts."

—Former New York Times editor Howell Raines, writing in the Los Angeles
Times

Captain Dan the Forgery Man Award

"My principal problem was that I stuck by the [Memogate] story, I stuck by
our people too long. I'm guilty of that. I believed in the story, and the facts
of the story were correct. One supporting pillar of the story, albeit an
important one, one supporting pillar was called into question. To this day, no
one has proven whether it was purported to be or not. You know, I didn't give up
on my people, our people. I didn't, and I won't. . . . The story was accurate."

"Are you considering running for Congress, Cindy? . . . I have to tell you,
you sound more informed that most U.S. Congresspeople, so maybe you should run."

—MSNBC's Chris Matthews to antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan on Hardball

Barbra Streisand Celebrity Vacuity Award

"I hate the way they portray us in the media. If you see a black family, it
says they're looting. See a white family, it says they're looking for food. . .
. A lot of the people who could help are at war right now fighting another way,
and they've given them permission to go down and shoot us. . . . George Bush
doesn't care about black people."

— Rapper Kanye West during NBC's Concert for Hurricane Relief

Media Millionaire for Smaller Paychecks Award

"For years we have cut our taxes, cut our taxes and let the infrastructure
throughout the country go, and this [Katrina damage] is just the first of a
number of other crumbling things that are going to happen to us. . . . I'm not
kidding."

— National Public Radio's Nina Totenberg, on Inside Washington

Politics of Meaninglessness Award

"It's been 11 days since two African-American teenagers were killed,
electrocuted during a police chase, which prompted all of this."

—CNN anchor Carol Lin on the French riots. The two teens were French
citizens of Tunisian origin, not Americans

What Liberal Media? Award

"I'm going out telling the story that I think is the biggest story of our
time: how the right-wing media has become a partisan propaganda arm of the
Republican National Committee. We have an ideological press that's interested in
the election of Republicans, and a mainstream press that's interested in the
bottom line. Therefore, we don't have a vigilant, independent press whose
interest is the American people." —Former PBS host Bill Moyers, quoted by the
Associated Press

Oh, That Liberal Media Award

Newsweek's Evan Thomas: "Is this attack [on public broadcasting's
budget] going to make NPR a little less liberal?"

NPR's Nina Totenberg: "I don't think we're liberal to begin with, and
I think if you would listen, Evan, you would know that."

Thomas: "I do listen to you, and you're not that liberal, but you're a
little bit liberal." — Exchange on "Inside Washington"

'Baghdad Bob' Was Right Award

"I think there's going to be a bloodbath on Sunday. . . . All over the place,
especially in Baghdad and a few other cities." —Fox News Channel's Steve
Harrigan,

All that is essential for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing What can I say? Only those that frequent my salon know what I wish for all of us. I started blogging in February '05 and nothing has been the same. What a fight! A battle of words, of war, of right and wrong, good and evil.And it's only the beginning. Enjoy your life and fight the Great fight. Happy New Year

I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics
and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography,
natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in
order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music,
architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain. -- John
Adams in letter to Abigail Adams, May 12, 1780

Go into the new year armed with this;Gallup's Dec. 19-22 poll asked Americans to name, without
prompting, the man and woman, living anywhere in the world, whom they
admire most. Nineteen percent of Americans named Bush as the most
admired man.

Every day, news organizations choose which stories to highlight in their news coverage and which to omit. In their coverage of hard news, the media inevitably trumpets meaningless, skewed, or false stories, while overlooking news items of vital importance – and this year was no exception.

Despite the media’s attempt to portray Iraq as an interminable struggle devoid of progress, facts on the ground prove two things:

American soldiers not only can win the war in Iraq; they are; and
Sunni “insurgents” are now more committed to American victory in Iraq than the American Left.

Despite the Left’s claim that the war is “unwinnable,” Americans are winning the war militarily, politically, and economically. Militarily, U.S. GIs rounded up or killed hundreds of terrorist leaders over the past year, including significant leaders in al-Qaeda.

The Left greeted the news with its characteristic dismissal. Sen. John Kerry told Meet the Press the January election had “a kind of legitimacy – I mean, it's hard to say that something is legitimate when a whole portion of the country can’t vote and doesn’t vote.” He added, “No one in the United States should try to overhype this election.”

Iraq has progressed on the military front, as well. President Bush has consistently said, “As Iraqis stand up, we will stand down” – and the day Americans may stand down may be on its way. As James Phillips of the Heritage Foundation recently pointed out:

The Iraqi Army and security forces grew from just 1 operational battalion in July 2004 to more than 120 today. Over 200,000 trained and equipped Iraqis are now playing an increasingly active role in rooting out insurgents.

Real GDP is expected to grow 3.7 percent in 2005 and 16 percent in 2006. Iraqi per-capita income has doubled since 2003, according to the World Bank.

Schools are being built; tens of thousands of Iraqi teachers are being trained.

Oh, and the children they teach no longer have to worry they will spend their recess watching their mother being gang raped before being fed into a plastic shredder.

From Delicious Dan of Gay Patriot West.....................It's now or never guys.

YOU GOT TO GIVE IT TO ME!

I live for psychic income.............

Dear Blogress Diva
Nominees--

At 3 PM here in LA (6 PM EST) tomorrow, I will check
the poll for favorite blogress diva and award the blogress with the highest
number of votes the title of Grand Conservative Blogress Diva '06. But, since
our readers have shown such affection for each of your blogs, we believe that
you are all divas (by our definition), strong, confident and talented women who
command the respect of men.

I'm constantly
asked whether game theory can bring about a resolution of the conflicts in the
Middle East. Game theory cannot provide a magic formula that will suddenly
resolve a century-old conflict. No academic discipline can do that. Game theory
isn't about the resolution of conflicts. It's about understanding conflicts.
Once we understand conflicts, perhaps we can use some of these insights to try
to resolve them.

Up to now all our efforts have been put into resolving
specific conflicts. I'd like to suggest that we should shift emphasis and study
war in general. War has been with us ever since the dawn of civilization.
Nothing has been more constant in history than war. It's a phenomenon, not a
series of isolated events. Efforts to resolve specific conflicts are certainly
laudable, and sometimes they bear fruit. But there's also another way of going
about it - studying war as a general phenomenon, studying general
characteristics, identifying common denominators and differences. Why does
homo economicus - rational man - go to war?

Can war be rational?
Unfortunately, the answer is yes. It is a big mistake to say that war is
irrational. Once we understand that war is rational, we can at least somehow
address the problem. If we simply dismiss it as irrational, we can't address the
problem. To prevent war, an obvious solution might be to disarm, to lower the
level of armaments. But in fact the opposite might be true. In the long, dark
years of the cold war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, what prevented war
was the existence of nuclear weapons. Disarming would have led to war. (Ynet
News)

Prof. Aumann, of the Hebrew University in
Jerusalem, received the honor shortly after the end of the Sabbath, together
with American Prof. Thomas Schelling, for their work on understanding conflict
through game theory. Aumann brought his entire extended family to the ceremony,
where Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf presented the prize.

The Israeli scholar, the eighth Israeli to win a Nobel prize, moved to Israel
in 1956 and is chairman of Hebrew University's Center for Rationality.

The suicide bomber
who killed an Israel Defense Forces officer and two Palestinians at an army
checkpoint near Tulkarm Thursday was apparently planning to blow himself up at
one of the many children's events taking place in Tel Aviv during this week's
Hannukah holiday, army sources said. Had the bomber not been stopped at the
checkpoint, the attack would have been far more deadly, said the sources. The
slain officer was Lt. Ori Binamo, 21, of Nesher. Of the slain Palestinians, one
was the taxi driver and the other might have been the bomber's guide. The IDF
believes that the Islamic Jihad network in the northern West Bank was
responsible. That network has been responsible for the deaths of 26 Israelis
since the start of the year, including all of the suicide bombings inside
Israel. IDF sappers said the suicide belt containing more than 10
kilograms of explosives was packed with nails and iron scraps to make it more
deadly. Because the blast occurred in an open area, its effect was mitigated,
but had it gone off in an enclosed hall packed with parents and children, as was
apparently intended, the effect would have been devastating. Col. Aharon Haliba,
commander of the Ephraim Brigade, said, "With all my sorrow over Ori, I have to
tell the truth: He and his soldiers, with their bodies, prevented [a far more
serious] attack. That is their job; that is our job." Due to warnings of other
attacks, the high alert along the seam between the West Bank and Israel will
remain in force.

It'so so depraved, it leaves me speechless...............and what's with the term "suicide" bombing?IT'S HOMICIDE BOMBING

YO YO YO.......I am running second! A vote
for Atlas is a vote for Justice heh

WASHINGTON -
The Justice Department has opened an investigation into the leak of classified
information about President Bush’s secret domestic spying program,
Justice
officials said Friday. The officials, who requested anonymity because of the
sensitivity of the probe, said the inquiry will focus on disclosures to The New
York
Times about warrantless surveillance conducted by the National Security
Agency since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The Times revealed the existence of the program two weeks ago in a front-page
story that acknowledged the news had been withheld from publication for a year,
partly at the request of the administration and partly because the newspaper
wanted more time to confirm various aspects of the program.

If the media puts a fraction of the spotlight on this act of treason as they did on the Plame nonsense, there will put traitors indicted for acts of treason. Think about it.

I, for one, want to rid the CIA, FBI, and NSA of careerists underminding the war effort and the Bush administration

Here's a letter written by C Max's (big) brother to CNN.com - Inquiry into leak of NSA spying program launched. The men and women. that make America great read this blog.

I can see tomorrow's NYT editorial already. You will see such
standard Liberal buzz words as: Nixonian, plumbers, chilling effect,
intimidation, free speech, civil liberties, police state, invasive, privacy, and
yadda yadda yadda. The NYT doesn't give a flying F about anybody's privacy or
civil rights when they urge on a Democrat hack prosecutor to indict Bush
Administration people for the "non-crime of a non-outing of a non-agent" as
Hitchens so wonderfully put it. However, they think it's inappropriate for the
government to investigate who is treasonously leaking valuable info to the press
(in the middle of a war for our very survival) for the sole purpose of hurting
Bush politically. Perhaps the NYT will be happy when Osama and boys hit NYC with
a nuke. People who are vaporized DON'T HAVE ANY CIVIL LIBERTIES ANYMORE BECAUSE
THEY'VE JUST LOST THE MOST IMPORTANT ONE-THE RIGHT TO LIFE, YOU LIBERAL
JACKASSES. I am totally sick of these jerks in the press. I still think the
names that will come out as the leakers will be Jay Rockefeller and Judge
Robertson. If so, "Book 'em Danno, treason 1."

UPDATE: Taranto is priceless today;

Cock-a-Doodle-DooThe chickens are coming home to roost
on West 43rd Street, Reuters reports from Washington:

The U.S. Justice Department is investigating who disclosed a secret domestic
eavesdropping operation approved by President George W. Bush after the September
11 attacks, officials said on Friday.

"We are opening an investigation into the unauthorised disclosure of
classified materials related to the NSA," an official said on condition of
anonymity.

Earlier this month, Bush acknowledged the program and called its disclosure
to The New York Times "a shameful act." He said he presumed the Justice
Department would investigate who leaked the National Security Agency
eavesdropping operation to the newspaper.

The Times, as we noted in February, has of late been a strong proponent of such
investigations. When Joe Wilson charged that someone in the administration had
"leaked" the name of his wife, CIA analyst Valerie Plame, who he falsely implied
was a covert agent, the Times urged the appointment of a special prosecutor to
investigate what it called an "abuse of power."

The Times got its wish, and more than it bargained for. The paper somehow
expected prosecutors not to compel testimony from the recipients of the "leak,"
the beneficiaries of the purported "abuse of power"--that is, journalists. But
it's hard to see how you can investigate a crime (or, in the case of the Plame
kerfuffle, a "crime") that consists of giving information to journalists,
without questioning journalists.

One of the Times' own reporters, Judith Miller, went to jail rather than
reveal her source. No, scratch that. She went to jail, spent three months there,
then revealed her source. As Mickey
Kaus noted in October:

The message sent to every prosecutor in the country is "Don't believe
journalists who say they will never testify. A bit of hard time and they just
might find a reason to change their minds. Judy Miller did."

If we were James Risen or Erich Lichtblau, who broke the NSA story for the Times, we'd be nervous.

"The
officials, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the
probe, said the inquiry will focus on disclosures to The New York Times
about warrantless surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency since
the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks."--Associated Press, Dec. 30

Bolton ratchets up pressure on SyriaU.S. Ambassador to UN calls on Damascus to cooperate with probe

BEIRUT: John Bolton, the U.S. Ambassador to the UN, said that acting UN chief investigator Detlev Mehlis "has important evidence that points to a Syrian involvement on very high levels."

In an interview with Pan-Arab daily As-Sharq al-Awsat published Thursday, Bolton said: "Mehlis' reports which he presented to the UN Security Council indicates without any doubt that he has important evidence that points to a Syrian involvement on high levels," in the assassination of former Premier Rafik Hariri.

Bolton also repeated U.S. threats for Damascus to "completely and unconditionally cooperate with the UN probe," adding that if this cooperation "doesn't come soon, then the UN Security Council will take appropriate measures ... it is just a matter of time."

He added "Syria would have nothing to worry about if they extend full cooperation to the UN probe; but if they don't, then they will be mocking the UN Security Council's decision."

Damascus has said it wanted an agreement outlining ways of cooperation with the UN probe, but Washington replied that such a condition was

WARSAW, Poland - Poland's president
said Thursday that he has approved extending the country's military mission in
Iraq for another year.

Lech Kaczynski decided "to extend the duration of
the mission" through Dec. 31, 2006, reversing a decision by Poland's last
government to bring the troops home within weeks, his office said in a brief
statement.Hat tip Jordan

And mind you, it can't be easy.

The rival in a widening game of pipelines and corporate strategy is Russia and
its empire of energy resources. Ninety percent of Poland's oil and much of its
natural gas flow from Russia. Such equations are distressing for Poles as they
rise in stature in the West while remaining in many ways subject to the
political and economic whims of their past oppressor.

"Russia
is exploiting its control of oil and gas as part of its foreign policy," said
Jerzy Marek Nowakowski, a former national security advisor. "This is an
extremely dangerous political instrument. Oil and gas are more effective for
Russia today than its nuclear weapons were during communist times." More here

Are they going to paint the largest state sponsor of terrorism as a big misunderstood teddy bear who only wants nukes for "peaceful"purposes while sitting on some of largest oil reserves in the Middle East. You and I both know how controlling and barbaric Iran is. ABC will report exactly what Iran wants them to report.

You must remember the
deal the networks made, particularly CNN, with Saddam to have access to
Iraq under his totalitarian regime. They were complicit in his crimes
against humanity by virtue of their silence. This disgusting story here in the Wall Street Journal and below

CNN admits that knowledge of murder, torture, and planned
assassinations were
suppressed in order to maintain CNN's Baghdad
bureau.

In a shocking New York Times opinion piece, CNN's chief
news executive Eason Jordan has admitted that for the past decade the network
has systematically covered up stories of Iraqi atrocities. Reports of murder,
torture, and planned assassinations were suppressed in order to maintain CNN's
Baghdad bureau.

Jordan has not always been so candid -- nor honest. Just
six months ago on public radio, when challenged regarding the veracity of CNN's
Baghdad reports, Jordan stated:

"CNN has demonstrated again and again that it has a spine;
that it's prepared to be forthright... we work very hard to report forthrightly,
to report fairly and to report accurately and if we ever determine we cannot do
that, then we would not want to be there [in Iraq]." Here are the transcripts

The deal? Keep silent and you can stay...............and so they did
while thousands died. How they sleep at night I'll never know. No Craig, Sorry if my point was obscured by the CNN horror story.I reran the CNN piece to point out what lengths a network will go to to gain "access" to despotic regimes. CNN was an accessory to mass murder just so that they could maintain a presence in Iran.

Do you really think that the brutal America hating, Jew Hating, West hating regime is going to give ABC access to the Kurds, the dissidents, the jails, the oppressed, the nuclear enrichment facilities? I mean really.

A tale of two stories: Same story, check out the spin.........

North Korea to Ban Food AidNPR Fri, 30 Dec 2005 5:39 AM
PSTOfficials in North Korea have announced that they are now
prohibiting the foreign help sought during famine in the 1990s. The U.N. World
Food Program is shutting down factories, preparing specially fortified biscuits,
and closing down offices. Susan Stamberg talks to United Nations' Anthony
Banbury.

North Korea In DepthABC Asia PacificThe United States has announced the suspension of its food
aid programme to North Korea.The UN World Food Program had been feeding up to 6.5 million North
Koreans. [Reuters]

hmmm, ABC eh? Didn't they just sign to report their evening news
from Iran? One can only begin to imagine the wonderful stories ABC will
concoct to maintain access.

UPDATE: Media bias redux

I am sure you've seen the piece splashed all over the world about the teenage boy in Fort Lauderdale (hey that's where I am, I would have joined him but he didn't blog it!) - that flew to Iraq without his parents, or anyone knowing anything about it.

FOX News also published the essay. But notice how the BBC carefully
DISGUISES the reason why Hassan felt compelled to go to Iraq. In fact, the
sound byte from Hassan's dad makes it sound as if he went there as some sort of
anti-war protest. Most of the print articles I have seen have been jocked
almost word for word from the BBC story linked below:

AP - Al-Qaida in Iraq said Thursday that it fired a barrage of rockets
from Lebanon into northern Israel this week, in a rare claim by the group of a
direct attack against the Jewish state. Full
Story

First off, check out the AP headline.......the use of "group" instead of al-Qaida, wild, right? WTF are they protecting?

Al Qaida in Iraq huh! Al Qaida striking Israel huh!

Maj. Gen. Aharon Zeevi-Farkash, the head of Israeli army intelligence, said Thursday in an interview with Israel's Channel 10 TV, "Today al-Qaida is turning its focus to the heart of the Levant — Syria, Egypt, Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, the countries around us, and to Israel."

This is a turning point. Iran's declarations of Jewish genocide has the let the proverbial cat out of the bag. It is open season. For all those Jew haters that have long insisted that our policies in the Middle East are the cause for the barbarism and hate ("why do they hate us?") bear in mind that al qaida stuck America (the Big Satan) first. Osama was unhappy with our presence in Saudi Arabia remember? So are we to believe Israel is suffering because of her alliance with the US? The big Satan's little Satan? Of course not. Radical Islamonazism's objective is word domination. Caliphate anyone?

This is Iran using Syria as a proxy. These are Russian weapons and the very same regime that is offering to enrich Iran's uranium. Iran is taking a 2nd look at Russia's proposal.Please tell me we won't fall for this obvious ruse. Meanwhile, Syria and a Russia have
signed a $2.7 billion memorandum of
understanding for construction of a refinery and petrochemical plant in
northeast Syria, AP reported. Ah, relationship building.

Is anyone in Washington reading Sun Tzu's The Art of War? Top Iranian and Russian officials agreed on Thursday to hold talks on a Russian
proposal aimed a resolving Tehran's nuclear standoff with the West, an Iranian
diplomat close to the talks said. Yeah, I am sure they'll be talking about peaceful enrichment./sarc tag

UPDATE:AP -Al-Qaida in Iraq said Thursday that it fired a barrage of rockets
from Lebanon into northern Israel this week, in a rare claim by the group of a
direct attack against the Jewish state.Full
Story

Iran's agreement to discuss Moscow's plan to enrich uranium in Russia does not
mean that Tehran has abandoned its drive to enrich uranium on its own soil, a
senior Iranian official was quoted as saying on Friday

In the spirit of historians putting together a list of the ten worst Britons in the last 1000 years, one for each Century, the lovely and splendid Alexandra from All things beautiful has asked for my top ten worst Americans.........here it is in no particular order

The Rosenbergs: See the Venona Tapes...............not that the enemy wouldn't have gotten nukes anyway but what an act of treason.

James Earl Ray: Martin Luther King's assassin murdered a brilliant leader, deliverer of his people to "the promised land". His absence created a vacuum filled by charlatans, looters, bloodsuckers...........destroyers of the Black family and community (Jesse Jackson, Farrakhan, Sharpton)

John Wilkes Booth: Lincoln's assasin changed the course of
American history by murdering the architect of the
Reconstruction.........leaving in his wake a shameful, destructive
period resulting in terrible abuses (40 acres and a mule, carpetbaggers
etc). Lincoln wanted to heal the nation, equal rights for all men.

John Sherman: - author of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, 15 U.S.C. Crucial turning point in the descent of the American economy was the passing of anti-trust laws.This ended the freedom of the American businessman.

Robert E Lee: His military genius actually prolonged the agony of the Civil War

Jimmy Carter: for his inability to defend our nation against the first wave of Radical Islamonazism.

Walter Cronkite: Father of media bias (I debated here with Murrow but thought Cronkite had more of an impact)

Gloria Steinem: Feminism is a phony movement and it did American women more harm than good. "Independence for women", government supported independence, supported by taxes extorted from men (their equals). Have it all my ass........work, raise children, cook, clean, ............they turned the word mama into a four letter word *spit* Women made bad choices in a society theat demonized motherhood as a bad career move "labeling Motherhood as patriarchy
parasite pregnancy"- which as Susan the lib Hawk explained "identified the female as the victim of her
biological nature being controlled by The Man". ( I used Steinem because she bacame the face of "modern feminism" and had the highest level of exposure, supplant Sanger or Freidan if you will but you get the point,).

Bill Clinton: In acts of official perfidy that may be
unparalleled in our nation’s history, Clinton accepted bribes from Red
China in the form of illegal political contributions, and in exchange
made policy decisions that undermined our national security.
• The Red Chinese military (the so-called People’s Liberation Army, or
PLA) is now able to deploy much more accurate nuclear-armed missiles
pointed at the United States, in large measure because of policy
decisions by President Clinton

I must declare a tie ................. LBJ and FDR.I did struggle with these two candidates and maybe 'EdwardsplashKennedy' was a more emotional choice because his pathetic grandstanding is in my face all the time and he represents to me the quintessential Ellsworth Toohey.

So for Hugh at The Sulla Institute I submit Lyndon B Johnson who was "amoral, dishonest, and corrupt. He turned Vietnam from a police action
into a war". His frequent lies and deceptions eroded the credibility of the Office of the President.

And for Tom at BizzyBlog, Franklin D Roosevelt because his new deal was the new communism, and we are still wrestling with the irreperable harm done to our economy. And lest we forget, he knew about the mass murder of millions of Jews - and still refused entry to 1000 fleeing Jews on the SS St Louis, the infamous "voyage of the damned".

In France, the unrest that triggered the
riots two months ago is not over but only waiting to break out again.

In one of the suburbs of Paris, a group of young men were seen recently
singing about the riots, about being Muslimand about not feeling French in
France, reports the International Herald Tribune.(UPI)

Meanwhile, just another "normal weekend" in Paris.

100 vehicles are burned; "nothing out of ordinary", Police said Sunday that about 100 vehicles were burned overnight, which
marked an average weekend tally for urban violence and did not signify a
flare-up of violence after riots last month.

Some French regions have banned retail sales of gasoline during the holidays
to prevent a recurrence of violence after three weeks of riots in which youths
used homemade gasoline bombs and set fire to cars and buildings.

National Police spokeswoman Catherine Casteran said Sunday that about 100
cars were reported burned overnight on Christmas Eve, which was equivalent to
''an ordinary weekend'' and the number of vehicles burned last Christmas.

In Australia, Norway, Sweden and other Western nations, there is a
distinct race-based crime in motion being ignored by the diversity
police: Islamic men are raping Western women for ethnic reasons. We know this
because the rapists have openly declared their sectarian
motivations.

When a number of teenage Australian girls were subjected to
hours of sexual degradation during a spate of gang rapes in Sydney that occurred
between 1998 and 2002, the perpetrators of these assaults framed their rationale
in ethnic terms. The young victims were informed that they were “sluts” and
“Aussie pigs” while they were being hunted down and abused.

This all points to a much larger picture. A sweeping violent tide of radical islamofascism tearing at the fabric of Western Civilization. Eurabia may take it lying down, but America is going to fight back tooth and nail, leftards beware.

Government records show that the administration was encountering
unprecedented second-guessing by the secret federal surveillance court when
President Bush decided to bypass the panel and order surveillance of U.S.-based
terror suspects without the court's approval.

SPY GAMES:If an al-Qaeda operative in Karachi phones someone
in Paris, France, obviously the President would have the authority to listen to
that conversation without a warrant.

But if an al-Qaeda operative in
Karachi phones someone in Paris, Texas -- the President would not have that
authority to listen to that conversation without a warrant?

Gathering
evidence for use in a criminal proceeding is one thing -- and that should
require a warrant.

But intelligence gathering is different. Evidence
concerns a crime that has been committed. Intelligence is the collecting of
clues about crimes that can still be prevented.

We're living in a
different world and fighting a different kind of war. Adults in the U.S. Senate
-- there are at least a few -- should back off the polemics and begin crafting
legislation that balances 21st century national security needs with adequate
protection of civil liberties.

John Schmidt, who severed in the Clinton
Justice Department, provides a cogent analysis of this issue here.

In the continuing
saga of the surveillance "scandal," ........... in order, it is important to step back and put things in historical context.

America is
at war with a dangerous enemy. Since 9/11, the president, our intelligence
services and our military forces have done a truly extraordinary job--taking the
war to our enemies and keeping them from conducting a single attack within this
country (so far). But we are still very much at risk, and those who seek
partisan political advantage by portraying efforts to monitor communications
between suspected foreign terrorists and (often unknown) Americans as being akin
to Nixon's "enemies lists" are serving neither their party nor their country.

Our Constitution is the supreme law, and
it cannot be amended by a simple statute like the FISA law. Every modern
president and every court of appeals that has considered this issue has upheld
the independent power of the president to collect foreign intelligence without a
warrant. The Supreme Court may ultimately clarify the competing claims; but
until then, the president is right to continue monitoring the communications of
our nation's declared enemies, even when they elect to communicate with people
within our country.

Mr. Turner, co-founder of the Center for National
Security Law at the University of Virginia School of Law, served as counsel to
the President's Intelligence Oversight Board, 1982-84.

US
sanctions Chinese firms over Iran dealingsWASHINGTON: The United States has imposed sanctions on six Chinese
state-run firms for selling missiles or chemical weapons-related supplies to
Iran, a State Department spokesman said today.The
nine companies were punished for violating the 2000 Iran Non-proliferation Act,
designed by Washington to block international aid for what it suspects are
Iranian nuclear and chemical weapons programmes.

We know that China got important nuclear technology from Bill Clinton in the Chinagate scandal. We also know that China shared it with North Korea and Iran as a counter balance to America's hyper power. We know that China operates by proxy as Iran does via Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas. We know China funds and supports the Radical Islamic Arab barbarians in the Sudan.We know China is an adversary.

Clifford
D. May over at FDDSpinning Harvard: Years ago, I attended
the Russian Institute at Columbia University, one of a
number of elite schools
meant to promote inquiry in regard to America's principal enemy of that era, the
Soviet Union.Imagine if the Russian Institute had been funded with
millions of dollars from the Kremlin. Would that not have been an obvious and
unacceptable conflict of interest?

Yet that is precisely the situation we
are in today. America's principal enemy is the totalitarian ideology of Militant
Islamism. And Saudi Arabia, whose state religion/ideology is Militant Islamism
(in its Wahhabist variation), has for years been giving millions of dollars to
American universities in order to influence scholars -- as well as the
government analysts and diplomats they train. Saudi Arabia's most recent
"gift" is $40 million to Harvard and Georgetown.

Recently, there has been
a brouhaha in Washington -- and rightfully so -- over revelations that some
lobbyists have paid scholars at think tanks to write op-eds. Shouldn't the
fortunes going from the Saudis to underwrite dubious scholarship be a much
bigger controversy?

Why do you suppose that is not the case?

My question is, when did America's universities become such whores? Where is the higher ground? Where is the moral compass? Dispicable. There should be Rachel Fish training in every one of our middle and high schools.

I am running the whole megillah from Honest Reporting because it's that important;

THE DISHONEST REPORTER 'AWARD' 2005

Big media was clearly on the defensive in 2005. Dan Rather left
the CBS News anchor desk under a heavy cloud while other executives were fired
in the wake of Memogate.
The use of anonymous sources put journalists like Judith
Miller and the NY Times in an uncomfortable spotlight. Newsweek's
erroneous report that US Marines desecrated a Koran touched off a firestorm of
deadly protests around the world. CNN news chief Eason
Jordan was forced to resign over comments
at an international forum. And an Al-Jazeera
reporter was even convicted for his links to Al-Qaida. In each controversy, bloggers
successfully pressured the news services for accuracy and
accountability.

Unfortunately, problematic
coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict continued. We couldn't address all the news services or
journalists who were nominated by HonestReporting subscribers, but we thank
readers for sharing their thoughts about 2005 and for making our fight for
honest reporting your fight too. So without further ado, we proceed with our
Dishonest Reporter of the Year Award. We begin with the
runner-ups:

Reuters

Of all the coverage we
saw of the Gaza pullout, nothing stood out more than this odious comment by Reuters
in the lead-up days:

The [Gaza] closure will give about 8,500 settlers a
taste of some of the military restrictions and bureaucracy endured by
Palestinians living under occupation.

The wire service also remained
consistent to its warped principles during the London terror attacks too,
refusing to describe the bombings as "terror."
To understand the logic behind Reuters' vocabulary gymnastics, see here.

Palestinian
Stringers

Western news services rely on
Palestinian stringers for reporting, photographs and video footage. They also
rely on "fixers" who provide all kinds of other support: arranging interviews,
navigating through difficult areas, translating and more. But how reliable and
objective are these stringers? The Jerusalem
Post exposed a number of AP and AFP stringers who were also on the Palestinian
Authority payroll, including Majida al-Batsh,
who was a candidate for PA president. (Nobody protested the use of AFP office
supplies for her candidacy.) The revelations brought to mind a related special report on the
influence of Palestinian organizations on foreign news. But unlike a similar scandal in
the White House press corps, the stringers' conflict of interest met deafening
silence.

C-Span

C-Span
executives took the idea of "balanced coverage" to an illogical extreme in
March, deciding that a talk by Holocaust scholar Deborah Lipstadt needed to be
balanced out with a talk by Holocaust denier David Irving. Lipstadt told
HonestReporting:

The notion that there are 'two sides to every story' is
simplistic, fuzzy thinking at best, and far more dangerous than that at
worst.

Now jailed in Austria, where
Holocaust denial is a crime, Irving awaits a
February trial.

The Guardian

The Guardian found itself red-faced by what became known
as Sassygate:
As exposed by blogger Scott Burgess, the
Manchester-based paper hired trainee journalist Dilpazier Aslam, whose coverage
of July's London terror attacks included a commentary
sympathizing with the bombers. It turned out that Aslam was a member of
Hizb Ut
Tahrir, an Islamist organization which calls for the destruction of Israel
and the rule of a world-wide caliphate. When the dust settled, Aslam was fired
and the paper's executive editor for news, Albert Scardino resigned. Aslam is
now suing
The Guardian for "racial and religious
discrimination."

Eric
Margolis

The February assassination of former Lebanese Prime
Minister Rafik Hariri shocked even the most cynical Mideast experts. Syrian
propaganda, predictably blaming Israel, was echoed by the North American
syndicated columnist Eric
Margolis. Ironically, the same week that the Mehlis report to the UN
on Hariri's murder was released, Margolis gave a soapbox to unsubstantiated
claims that Israel had a hand in the 1988 plane crash that killed Pakistani
dictator Zia
Ul-Haq.

* *
*

But one news service's skewed
coverage stood out the most, "winning" the award in a landslide. From the first
day votes came in, it wasn't close, which may explain the dearth of nominations
for perennial runner-ups like the NY Times, Associated Press and The
Independent. The 2005 Dishonest Reporter of the Year Award goes to the British
Broadcasting Corporation.

The
impact of BBC coverage cannot be understated. A Google
study found that for breaking news, internet users around the world were
more likely to turn to the BBC than CNN. More than 270 million TV viewers around
the world watch BBC
World. Even more people listen to BBC World Service, which broadcasts in 42
languages.

Readers provided a full laundry
list of complaints and we found the most effective way to condense the biggest
offenses was in a simple list form. The examples of bias from the year past
indicates a pattern of naivete, dishonesty, forcing facts conform to a narrow
worldview and, arguably, a desire to inappropriately influence events - all paid
for by British television viewers through the TV License Fee, which costs
the typical household 126.50 GB Pounds per
year.

Here are the top 10 reasons
(listed in chronological order) why the BBC is HonestReporting's Dishonest
Reporter of the Year.

10. In January, Palestinian presidential candidate Dr.
Mustafa Barghouti (not to be confused with his better-known distant
relative, Marwan) tried to use Israel and the Western media to get some free
publicity for his campaign by getting himself arrested at the Temple Mount. The
Independent's
Donald Macintyre saw straight through Barghouti's ploy, but the BBC's Martin Asser
proved more gullible:

A
large crowd of journalists has gathered at an East Jerusalem hotel to hear him,
and there is some excitement because a rumour is going round he will go to the
al-Aqsa mosque later for Friday prayers...

It is meant to be the photo-opportunity highlight of the
day - but the Israeli security services have other ideas...

In truth, Mr Barghouti's programme was not unduly
affected by the detention, because his next engagement was not scheduled until
1330.

I
could be wrong, but that - rather conveniently - left ample time for his
headline-grabbing brush with the Israelis before moving on to meet the voters.

9. Every morning, listeners can
tune into BBC for an uplifting "Thought of
the Day." One February morning, Rev. Dr. John Bell used the feature to
describe an Arab-Israeli acquaintance only identified as "Adam." According to
Rev. Dr. Bell, this acquaintance was "conscripted" into the Israeli army, where
"he was also imprisoned for refusing to shoot unarmed schoolchildren." See the
full
transcript here.

After HonestReporting
pointed out that Israeli-Arabs aren't required to serve in the IDF and that the
allegations that soldiers have orders to shoot unarmed kids are wholly
unfounded, the BBC apologized-
but only for not fact-checking Adam's age and the issue of conscription.
We still await a retraction about the non-existent orders to shoot
kids.

8. In March, the BBC apologized
to Israel for reporter Simon Wilson's handling of an interview with Mordechai
Vanunu. A former technician at the Dimona nuclear plant, Vanunu is prohibited
from talking to foreign reporters, but Wilson, in 2004, was caught trying to
smuggle tapes of his interview out of the country. Although the apology - which
paved the way for Wilson to return to Israel - was supposed to remain
confidential, it was inexplicably posted on the BBC's own web site for several
hours. The BBC once intended to rent out a luxury
apartment for Vanunu paid for by British television viewers.

[BBC]
are adopting what they see as an even handed attitude. To me this is a cowardly
attitude, it is an attitude which confuses occupier with
occupied...

6. In May, BBC correspondent Orla
Guerin reported that construction linking Maale Adumim to Jerusalem would
split the West Bank in two, destroying any possibility of a viable Palestinian
state. HonestReporting
noted that construction in the area known as E-1 doesn't take away territorial
contiguity. A map produced by our colleagues at CAMERA highlights
how the Palestinians would have continuous territory, which, at its narrowest,
would be nine miles (or 15 km) wide - which also happens to be the width of
Israel's "waistline" between the Green Line and the
Mediterranean.

5. When members of the British
Association of University Teachers considered
a boycott of Israel's Bar-Ilan and
Haifa universities, BBC radio tried to influence the vote with a report by
correspondent John Reynolds from the College of Judea and Samaria. As Melanie
Phillips wrote in May:

Not a word about the fact that more than 300 students at
this college are Arabs, and that the Arab mayors of local towns have
enthusiastically welcomed the opportunities it gives their
students...

The BBC might as well have had a block vote at today's
AUT conference. So much for its supposed objectivity, which once again stands
exposed as a charade.

4. When terrorists linked to Al-Qaida struck the London
transportation system in July, many thought the BBC would finally use the word
"terror" to describe the wanton attacks on civilians. To their credit, a small
handful of initial reports did. But appearances of the "t-word" in initial
coverage were soon removed
from the BBC's web site (but not before Tom Gross
documented the inconsistencies). Yet Roger Mosey, the head of BBC's television
news, contradicted BBC
policy when he wrote in The
Guardian that there was no ban in the first place!

Then
there has been a controversy about our use of language - particularly the
question of whether the BBC banned the word "terrorist". There is no ban. It's
true the word is contentious in some contexts on our international services,
hence the recommendation that it be employed with care. But we have used and
will continue to use the words terror, terrorism and terrorist - as we did in
all our flagship bulletins from Thursday.

Not surprisingly, subsequent
coverage of the London bombings and their aftermath remained "terror free."
At the end of the year, however, The Guardian
reported that BBC journalists received new "guidance" discouraging - but not
banning - the "t-word." Time will tell if this will have a positive impact in
2006.

I
do not pay my license fee to watch an unrepresentative Muslim audience like
this.

The BBC's response?

In order to ensure a range of voices on these issues,
the studio audience contained a higher proportion of Muslims in the audience
than in the population as a whole - around 15% of the audience as opposed to
2.7% of the country as a whole...

This isn't the first time the
BBC got in hot water for loading the audience. In 2001, anti-American invective
from a Question
Time audience discussing the 9/11 attacks got so out of hand that news
director Greg Dyke had to apologize to US ambassador Philip Lader, who
participated in the show.

Can anyone imagine a BBC
program on Israel loaded with Israelis and Jews?

2. Within hours after Israel
completed its pull-out from the Gaza Strip, Palestinians wasted no time
desecrating synagogues and looting greenhouses. BBC's Orla
Guerin was one of several journalists who
actually justified the sad, senseless destruction:

Palestinians came streaming to the
settlements that caused them so much pain, to sightsee and to loot. Israel stole
thirty-eight years from them; today, many were ready to take back anything they
could.

1. Whatever happened to Malcolm
Balen, who was appointed to help improve the BBC's Mideast reporting? Back
in November, 2003, the BBC hired him as a "senior editorial advisor," or, as
some put it, "a Middle East policeman." Some HonestReporting readers were
hopeful when Haaretz
reported that Balen was supposed to present a "conclusive and comprehensive
report" to BBC executives. Balen even told Haaretz:

What I do is a long-term editorial review, and by
definition, the review is retrospective, rather than a look at day-to-day
output. The truth is, in any editorial job, you are so tied up with your program
and deadline, that you simply do not have the time to stand back and look at the
coverage as a whole," says Balen.

"Nobody has the time in a
journalistic job to trace the course of a single story in an organization as
large as the BBC, which is what I was appointed to do. I can concentrate on a
single story and look at all sorts of angles and aspects. I can join the dots
together, [determine] what the coverage feels like, what the tone is like -
crucially, what the content is like, what the balance is
like."

Yet with all the resources of the BBC at his disposal, Balen, to
our knowledge, has not presented any report. In contrast, Trevor Asserson, a
British lawyer working on his own initiative, put together several exhaustive critiques.
HonestReporting readers, who also chose the BBC as Dishonest Reporter of the
Year in 2001,
connected the dots.Has Balen?

* *
*

By October, the
deteriorating coverage reached a point where the Board of Governors requested
Sir Quentin Thomas to lead an independent
panel to investigate its Mideast reporting. (See here
for more details.) The panel is supposed to release its findings in the spring.
When the Board of Governors released its Programme
Complaints: Appeals to the Governors, the forward by the chairman of the
complaints committee noted that the majority of the complaints (20 out of 27 in
fact) dealt with Mideast coverage. Only one - against Barbara
Plett-
was upheld.

Yet even in December, former
director-general Greg
Dyke, a casualty of the Hutton Report, insists that the
network's Mideast reporting continues to be fair:

We investigated many of the complaints and most of the
time found our reporting had been totally fair. Of course the pro-Israeli lobby
didn't accept that but then they had a different agenda.

The stakes are certainly high.
News services skewing reports from the Mideast are just as capable of warping
other important areas of coverage. For the BBC, that's most notably Iraq.
The BBC's royal
charter expires at the end of 2006 - one year from now -- and officials
must explain how it spends income from the TV License Fee. In 2003, this TV tax
brought the BBC nearly 2.4 billion GB
Pounds in income. Simply put, the British public is subsidizing lousy news.

As far as we're concerned, the
excuses and apologies have worn thin. The BBC must be held
accountable.

HonestReporting covered a lot of ground in 2005 and will continue monitoring
the media in the coming year. We hope 2006 proves to be a better year of honest
reporting.

Thank you for your ongoing involvement in the battle against media bias.

More widly Biased reporting;

MOSQUE AND STATE: Charles Jacobs, President of the David
Society, in the Boston Globe, Dec. 25:

The story on the lawsuit filed against us by the Islamic Society of
Boston ("Praised by beacon, mosque project stalls amid rancor," Page A1, Dec.
18) did mention that the society's founder, Abdurahman Alamoudi, raised money
for Al Qaeda and is in jail (in connection with a plot to assassinate a Saudi
prince). But the story omitted even more worrisome facts.The society's leaders have praised suicide bombers and called for attacks on
Americans. A website in Qatar associated with society trustee Yousef
al-Qaradawi, an internationally known leader of extremists, calls for gays to be
executed by either stoning or burning. Al-Qaradawi has been barred from the
United States. The society website praises as "very good" a book that refers to
the women's liberation movement as a "Jewish plot" to corrupt society and argues
that wife-beating is at times necessary. The library of the society's current
Cambridge mosque contains literature containing vitriol directed against
Christians, Jews, and Americans. While mosque spokesmen speak of "dialogue" and
tolerance, Qaradawi says "there is no dialogue between us [and the Jews] except
by the sword and the rifle."

Unlike the Soviet bloc, the Muslim world lacks not access to reliable information
but interest in it. The reasons are many but perhaps the most salient of them are a disposition to believe in conspiracy theories and an attraction to totalitarian solutions. Rather than try to purvey information to Muslims, State (and its counterparts elsewhere) should instead assert the case for liberal, secular, and humane values. More than facts, the Muslim world needs to understand the basics of what makes the West thrive - and thereby be inspired to emulate it.